First Contact presents the original artifacts from the first night of my pendulum experiments. These works were physically generated using a makeshift setup, before I had control over the system, where motion, rotation, and light all behaved unpredictably. The light source was loosely rigged and free to spin, with an improvised aperture that shifted with angle, causing variations in brightness, shape, and exposure throughout each path. These conditions introduced distortions and inconsistencies that give each piece its distinct character. Every work from that night is unique and cannot be reproduced, capturing the earliest emergence of the patterns that would come to define a multi-year series.

First Contact No. 1 feels almost celestial, like peering into a black hole, with a dark core surrounded by a luminous ring as the motion spirals inward. The path begins nearly circular before gradually elongating as the system loses energy unevenly across the axes. Variations in light, driven by the angle-dependent aperture, create a shift in brightness from the outer paths to the center, while subtle interference in the motion produces layered structure as it collapses toward rest.